


Blood Runs Thicker

by orphan_account



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Angst, Animal Abuse, Dark, Dark Character, Drabble, Other, Physical Abuse, The Author Regrets Nothing, The Hale Fire, sociopathic tendencies
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-07
Updated: 2014-04-07
Packaged: 2018-01-18 11:12:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,625
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1426384
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There is nothing beautiful about the water.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Blood Runs Thicker

**Author's Note:**

> i was irritated after work so i walked to the river and wrote this

There is nothing beautiful about the water.

She insists there is. Claims that beneath its surface lurks treasures.

He doesn’t believe her. He tells her so, when they’re skipping rocks at sunset with their sweatshirts wrapped around their waists.

She turns to him, smiling.

Her teeth are sharp like the rocks that cut his feet when she tells him about Atlantis.  
__

“What’s Atlantis?”

“A city. It’s made of gold and if you find it, you’ll make us all rich. Everyone will be so happy.”  
_

He finds rocks, and sand, and fish with mouths that gape wide in surprise at the sight of a little boy with his head beneath the surface.  
_

“I’m going to hold on to you, okay? Just so you don’t float away.”  
_

He does not find Atlantis.

_

Their mother finds them that first time and Laura pulls her hands away, yells at him to stop messing around, to come up now.

“He did it by himself. Wanted to look at the fish,” Laura says.

Derek wonders why his mother doesn’t call her out for lying.  
_

She swims sometimes, when the water is too dangerous for the humans to try it. She strips off her clothes and wades into the water naked. Derek doesn’t know what she resembles in those moments, he just knows that it isn’t nice.

“You shouldn’t do that,” he tells her once, when the current almost pulls her away from where she has a strong grip on the rock wall and she laughs.

“You shouldn’t be such a sissy.”  
_

It’s past midnight when Laura grabs him by the hand, telling him she has something cool to show him.

They run through the woods with the moonlight guiding them. He doesn’t know where they’re going until he smells gas, and trash, and…

“Oh, gross,” Derek says when they stop before the source of the smell that has him covering his face with his shirt.

It’s a cat, not quite dead yet and Derek wishes it was. Death smells better than this in between state, where the cat has shit itself and is bleeding out of its mouth, trying to drag itself into the woods with its hind end crushed, tire tracks imprinted into its flesh.

“It’s awesome.”  
_

When Peter asks why their shirts smell so funny when they come downstairs the next morning, Derek remembers they forgot to change and his breath catches in his throat.

“Maybe you’re smelling the trash,” Laura suggests. “Derek forgot to take it out again.”

It’s a lie, because Laura watched him take out the trash, lounging on the porch with a book in her head.

Derek listens for the trip in her heartbeat he knows every human has when they lie and there’s nothing.

Just a steady steady beat.  
_

Derek tries to swim, once.

The current drags him down the river and he thinks he’s going to die.

He looks up, sees Laura watching him from shore, hands on her hips with a smile on her face, and he knows he’s going to die.  
_

His father drags him from the water, brings him back with a slap to the face.

“I told you not to do it, Derek,” Laura says, looking over their father’s shoulder. She looks so concerned, Derek wonders if he’s been making up that other version of her. The one that likes to shift and gut animals alive, or throw them against rock walls, or hold little boys’ heads under water…

“Why would you do that? Why would you go for a swim now? It’s too dangerous, even for a wolf,” his father says, his voice so angry that Derek curls away from it.

“I….I don’t know. I just thought I could,” Derek says.

Such a fucking sissy.  
_

“You shouldn’t do that,” Derek says, when he is ten and finally as big as his sister.

Laura looks away from the mouse she’s dipping in the water. It squeals in her hands, doing its best to escape, but every time it manages to bite her hand, Laura just flicks it off.

“Maybe you should go away,” she suggests, voice sickly sweet.

“It’s mean, Laura.”

“Fuck off, Derek.”

Derek balls his hands up into fist. “You shouldn’t say that to me. It’s not a nice word.”

Laura drops the mouse, watches it disappear and they both listen as its heartbeat fades into nothing. She turns to him then, lips curling away from her teeth, but Derek can’t tell if she’s snarling or laughing.

“Fuck. Off,” she repeats, and then she really is laughing, tossing her head back and letting the sound loose. “Fuck off! Fuck off, Derek!”

“Stop it! Stop it! Don’t say that to me!” Derek snarls, picking up a rock that’s close and hurling it at her head.  
_

He was six when Laura pushed him down the front steps, laughing while he cried, and he shoved her over in return.

That night, when he got up to go downstairs for a glass of water, she pushed and watched him fall.

_

When they get home, Laura tells their mother that bullies had cornered Derek after school.

He sniffs up the blood dripping down his face from what he thinks is a broken nose. He doesn’t know why it won’t heal.

“I know why,” Laura exclaims gleefully. She takes one of his fingers in his, snaps it so quick that Derek isn’t even sure it’s really happened until the pain hits him. “There. Kickstarted it.”  
_

Their mother sends Laura to her room, but Derek thinks that’s worse, because when he’s trying to sleep she just sits on the other side of the wall, whispering to him.  
_

Sometimes, she tells him stories about Atlantis.

“I don’t believe in that anymore,” Derek says.

“I still think you should look.”  
_

That time, she holds his head under the water for so long he thinks he’s going to die.

Neither of them expect it when he manages to come up with a gasp, knocking her away and into the river.  
_

“I’m stronger than you now,” Derek tells Laura.

She looks up from her dinner. Shakes her head.

“Not yet.”  
_

He is stronger, physically, but he crumbles in way that Laura doesn’t when he’s seventeen and a fire eats their family alive.  
_

He stumbles through the woods, kneels down by the water’s edge and throws up into it until his stomach is empty.

Laura’s hand is hot on his shoulder.

“I told you, Derek. She didn’t love you. She was just looking for a quick fuck, and you were too horny to listen, huh?”

“Shut up.”

Laura squeezes his shoulder until he cries out and flashes her eyes red. “It’s time to go.”  
_

She complains wherever they go, says nowhere is as pretty as Beacon Hills.

She tries her best to make it pretty. Paints pictures on their walls with the blood of animals she’s managed to catch, mainly stupid dogs that didn’t listen to their owners and run away from the glowing eyes in the night.

“Why?” Derek asks her once, when he walks into their apartment and she’s flooded the bath again.

She smacks him across the face.

“Don’t you ever question me,” she snarls, eyes glowing red before she laughs. “Guess what, Derek? We’re going home.”  
_

She’s packed up the car. Taken everything of his and locked it in the truck.

“You’re going to come with me, Derek. We belong in Beacon Hills.”  
_

He slips wolfsbane into her dinner, watches her eat it with hope flaring in his chest.

When she falls over, black dripping out of her mouth, Derek runs.  
_

She texts him, always on a Wednesday, always at eight, and he knows that he should block her number but he just can’t.  
_

The house is the same. I can see where they all died. Aunt Peg, lol. She just spread out right by the door. That bitch was so close and she couldn’t do it.  
_

 **Where are you, Derek?**  
_

 **I’m going to find you.**  
_

 **The mice have gotten a lot smarter since we left.**  
_

 **Did you know that the police suspected it was you, at first?**  
_

 **They thought you burnt them all alive.**  
_

 **Lol.**  
_

 **I’m insulted.**  
_

 **You can’t even hurt a fly.**  
_

 **Derek. Come home.**  
_

When the first Wednesday goes by without a text, he thinks that she’s finally given up, but he knows that’s false hope.

Laura never gives up.  
_

The third Wednesday, he drives to Beacon Hills without really understanding why.

He just knows he has to see.  
_

He likes her better in death.

She’s still, and calm, and he can close his eyes and pretend that he loved her while he burns his fingers weaving wolfsbane into rope.  
_

The rituals of their kind are not what Laura deserves.  
_

He speaks the words about ravaged souls, split into two.

It’s supposed to represent man and wolf, coming into unity at death or something. It’s supposed to be beautiful, ancient words probably written by a werewolf from ages ago, terrified of his own body.

He just thinks it’s funny, considering Laura is literally split in two.  
_

The wolf laying down the rope isn’t supposed to wear gloves. It is supposed to burn, so that they feel the same pain their ancestors felt or some other bullshit. He never paid attention when his mother explained the rules.

He slips on thick leather gloves before picking up the rope, humming while he works.  
_

He does not pray for her soul to find freedom.  
_

The police think that he killed her.

He’s honored.

**Author's Note:**

> there's the remains of the old mill by the river, and i was sitting on one of the walls with a drop underneath. i went to get up, but i forgot my foot was asleep, so i almost fell back and i ended up stumbling forward thinking "woah i wonder if this is what drunk people feel like"
> 
> that end note has nothing to do with the fic, i just felt like sharing.


End file.
